The chase went into a nearby courtyard where the suspect fired at the officer, according to Aurora Police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson.

The officer returned fire.

Police say the officer suffered a gunshot wound to the leg.

Initially it was believe the officer was shot multiple times, however, doctors now say the officer was struck by multiple bullet fragments, not multiple bullets. He was been treated and released from a local hospital.

Police set up a perimeter and began a manhunt for the suspect. During this effort, officers were able to contact the suspect who told them he still had a weapon, ammunition and planned to “go out shooting,” according to Carlson.

She says officers were able to determine the man had fled to an apartment complex at Colfax Avenue and Emporia Street and called in the SWAT team.

The SWAT team was able to establish communication with the suspect again.

Carlson says efforts to talk the man into surrendering were unsuccessful. Shortly after 7 a.m. Friday the SWAT team decided to try to force the man out using gas. The man tried to escape through a window. He was still carrying a gun, according to Aurora Police. Officers opened fire, killing the suspect. The man has not been identified.

Two men are accused of committing eight bank robberies in Colorado Springs and Fountain in which they took turns accosting tellers at gunpoint, Colorado Springs police said Friday.

Police described Daryl Keener and Gary Cyprian as “career criminals” who netted more than $64,000 in a scheme meant to make police believe that only one man was responsible for the heists.

“If there were such a thing as a pro bank robber in the area, they were it,” detective Sgt. Dale Fox said at a news conference.

Keener, 30, and Cyprian, 28, met in prison, worked for the same employer and spent “nearly every waking hour together,” during which they worked out a uniform approach to robbing banks, Fox said.

One man entered the bank with a handgun while the other waited in a getaway car.

“They would walk in and tell the customers to get on the floor, and they were very comfortable doing it,” Fox said.

The men — who wore hooded sweatshirts and masks — used similar language to ask for large bills and warn clerks against placing security features such as dye packs or GPS beacons in the cash.

Police say Keener brought the expertise about bank security and police investigative tactics: He was sentenced in a bank robbery in 2003 and served six years.

The robberies started Dec. 28 and ended March 8, just a few days after police got lucky by finding a business with surveillance footage of a sport-utility vehicle fleeing a March 3 robbery at Key Bank, 1115 Elkton Drive, Fox said.

An employee of the business later recognized the same vehicle driving down the street more than two miles away.

This time, however, the worker had a view of the rear license plate that couldn’t be seen on the surveillance footage. The plate was traced to a Dodge Durango belonging to Cyprian and his wife, police said.

Police turned up four weapons while searching a garage used by Keener, including three pistols and a semiautomatic variant of a Fabrique Nationale carbine rifle generally associated with military special forces groups.

GREELEY — A Phoenix truck driver accused of a carjacking and other crimes has been charged with 32 counts, including attempted first-degree murder of a police officer.

Scott Walker, 47, is being held on $2 million bond. He was arrested Dec. 28 at a Greeley-area home where authorities say he smashed through a gate with a stolen cable-TV truck and burst into the house.

GREELEY – Police investigators are trying to determine how a gang member was able to take a weapon from a Weld County Sheriff’s deputy and fatally shoot him at an Evans subdivision Tuesday morning.

Deputy Sam Brownlee, 43, was shot once in the face and twice in the chest by Rueben Reyes, 20, who was chased by police across two counties before being stopped in the Cave Creek subdivision. Reyes was shot and killed by an Evans police officer.

“All we can do at this point is speculate,” said Weld County Sheriff John Cooke Wednesday.

“For most of us, this is something completely surreal,” Cooke said. “It just simply hasn’t sunk in yet.”

Brownlee was shot after a vehicle chase that at one point reached 107 mph.

Reyes allegedly stole a car in Fort Morgan after reportedly being involved in a domestic dispute. Morgan County sheriff’s deputies and police from Wiggins chased after the stolen car. Weld County deputies and state troopers took over the chase at the county line and were eventually joined Evans police officers.

Reyes was first reported to be an armed robbery suspect, Cooke said. However, Cooke said, officers determined that Reyes did not have a gun in the car when he was stopped in the subdivision.

Officers at the scene, including Brownlee, pulled Reyes out of the car and they started wrestling on the pavement, Cooke said. The officers also tried to Tazer the suspect, but the Tazer prongs did not stick in Reyes, Cooke said.

Reyes was able to get Brownlee’s weapon and shot him, twice in the chest and once in the head, the sheriff said.

The Evans officer then shot Reyes, Cooke said. Both Reyes and Brownlee were taken to North Colorado Medical Center where they both died.

The shooting is under investigation by the Greeley Police Department. Investigators will be looking to see if Brownlee’s weapon was properly holstered, Cooke said.

Brownlee was also a Tazer instructor and on the sheriff’s department firearms team.

Before he became a deputy, he served with the Ault Police Department. He is survived by his wife, two children and two step-children.

Brownlee worked for several years at Rocky Mountain Supplies and was good friends with the owner’s son, Eddie Rutt.

“All he talked about was being in law enforcement,” said Rutt. “He volunteered with the police, went on ride-alongs, it was just his life-long dream to be a cop.”

“If you wanted anything, anything at all, Sam was there for you,” Cooke said. “He was a good man and a good officer.”

Reyes, who identified himself to Morgan County deputies as a member of the Sureño gang during a June 2009 arrest, was arrested in March 2009 for beating a 50-year-old man so severely after a traffic accident that the man’s leg was broken, the arrest reports say.

He was the father of a daughter born in June in Fort Morgan.

Earlier in the day, the Reyes family sent their condolences to Brownlee’s family. The Reyes’s also reportedly described Reuben as a “troubled teen.”

Cooke brushed aside that explanation for the shooting. “I still see him as a monster, because he killed one of our officers,” Cooke said. “In my mind, that’s exactly what he is.”

A memorial for Brownlee is scheduled for Monday at the Butler-Hancock auditorium on the University of Northern Colorado campus.

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.—A police dog in Grand Junction is recovering after a suspect allegedly tried to drown the canine.

The German Shepherd named Oldo tracked down 38-year-old Richard Stieb a quarter-mile away from a suspected robbery late Wednesday.

Officers say Oldo bit Stieb and then Stieb grabbed the dog with both hands and they both rolled into an irrigation canal. An officer then jumped on Stieb. A handgun was found near where Stieb had been lying on the ground.

A man wanted for murder in Mexico was caught in Colorado Springs while hauling an air conditioning unit, which he threw at officers in an attempt to escape, authorities said.

Miguel Lopez-Fuentes, who was also wanted on an armed-robbery warrant out of Castle Rock, was taken into custody at about 2:30 p.m. Friday, according to an El Paso County Sheriff’s Office media release.

A task force made up of officers from various departments located Lopez-Fuentes in the 1900 block of South Chelton Road, at the Summit Creek Apartments, carrying a window air conditioning unit, “which he subsequently threw at deputies and took off running,” the Sheriff’s Office said.

Deputies were able to chase Lopez-Fuentes down and after a “struggle” arrested him.

Lopez-Fuentes is being held at the Douglas County Jail without bond. He faces additional possible charges of resisting arrest, criminal mischief, assault on a peace officer, and criminal attempt to disarm a peace officer.

Lopez-Fuentes is suspected of being in the United States illegally, the sheriff’s office said, and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) notified the sheriff’s office that he’s wanted on “an international warrant for murder out of Mexico.”